


The Mechanic

by KaireeDahl



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game), Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, I don't know, Sadly no connor, Tony's from another world, Vague hints of Simon/Markus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2020-11-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:15:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27387805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaireeDahl/pseuds/KaireeDahl
Summary: Tony gets stranded in Detroit after maybe messing with some portals or something, and Markus and crew recruit him for help.No idea what this is or where it came from but, here you go!
Relationships: Markus/Simon (Detroit: Become Human)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 72





	The Mechanic

“Are you the Mechanic?”

The figure that these words had been aimed at startled from his spot underneath the machine he was messing with. There was the tell tale clang of metal followed by a pained curse that told Markus that the figure had likely hit his head.

“Are you the Mechanic?” the android repeated. Josh and North were at his shoulders, the Traci model radiating distaste even if her code was tightly constrained to her body, while Simon was standing thoughtfully at the back.

“Ugh.” The figure, a man with a grease-stained face and unkempt goatee, rolled out from under the metal contraption and rubbed his head. He squinted at the group of them. “Depends on who’s asking.”

“I am Markus.” The android replied evenly. North’s annoyance ticked up a notch. “We were sent here to ask for your services.”

The man’s eyebrows rose. “Wait, you’re the guys Lucy warned me were coming?” He frowned. “I thought she said you’d get here on Thursday.”

Markus frowned and exchanged a look with his team. North’s irritation was thankfully replaced with confusion as they all stared at the man.

“…It _is_ Thursday.”

The man squinted skeptically at him, before digging an odd contraption out from his pocket. He clicked something and, to their surprise, a projection lit up showing the date and time.

“Well, shit.” He spoke, rubbing his eyes and shoving the contraption back in his pocket. “Well, you’re here on time, then. Lucy didn’t mention what you’d need, though. I’m assuming something mechanical?”

“We were told that you could assist with the repairs of androids.” Markus explained carefully.

The man hummed and nodded his head. He stood up and began wiping his hands with a stained rag, smudging the grease there more then removing it.

“Depends on the issues, I guess.” He said as he plopped the filthy rag on his worktable. “Some things are easier to fix than others, and I won’t know any specifics til I get whoever you want fixed in here. Or wherever you want this done.” He added, noticing their wary looks. “If you want me to do it at you home base, that’s fine. Just let me know beforehand, yeah?”

Markus having noticed his use of the word “whoever” in reference to an android had a surge of affection for the man who’s name he didn’t even know.

“I’m certain we can arrange something.” Markus replied. “My name is Markus, this is North, Josh, and Simon.” He pointed at each of the respective androids. “We have a lot of androids in need of repair.” He warned.

The man sighed and stretched, his arms reaching to the ceiling while his back gave an audible ‘CRACK’ that nearly had Markus wincing.

“I’m Tony – or Mechanic. Either works for me.” He shrugged. “And if it’ll get my mind off this _mess_ ,” he gestured vaguely at the object he’d been working on, “then sure, why not?”

~~~

They had discussed it for a long time. North was of the opinion the man, a human, could not be trusted and they should leave him be. Josh was equally as wary of the man, but he wanted to give it a chance, to give the man a little bit of trust. Simon supported whatever Markus ultimately decided. And Markus…

Markus wanted a volunteer.

“We may put our trust in him, or not.” Their leader explained. “But it’s not us he’d be repairing. Not yet. We need someone who is willing to take the risk to get repaired.”

Neither Josh or North could argue with that. Simon stood behind them with a proud little smile on his face, so Markus was pretty sure he’d made the right choice.

So he went back to Lucy and her patients, looking for his volunteer.

It took a few tries. Most of them had suffered horribly at the hands of humans and were reluctant to put themselves back into one’s care, even if it helped them.

Thankfully, their was one, an AJ700 model named Laura, who was willing to give it a shot.

“I’ve got nothing to lose.” She told him when he asked her why. “I was a custom model. My “owners” wanted something unique so I can’t replace my damaged parts with anything but the ones made specially for me. I’ve only got another month if I don’t move around _and_ we get more Thirium.”

Markus accepted her choice with a grateful brush of ‘thank you’ code toward her.

The next part of the discussion was easier.

None of them trusted the human with the location of Jericho, but the risk of being seen while transporting Laura to his warehouse was equally as high. They had to take her there under cover of night and with as few people as possible.

Simon volunteered, much to Markus’ chagrin.

The plan was solid and Simon was aware of the risks, but the RK200 still fretted.

He decided against the other’s protests that he’s show up to the warehouse early, so that if something went wrong, Markus was there to help out, either by protecting Simon and Laura or by disabling the Mechanic.

A small part of his code told him that he was always worried about Simon. Markus studiously ignored it.

The Mechanic was surprised at his sudden appearance in the warehouse, a modified blowtorch in hand, working on welding two pieces of … something together. It was metal, he could tell that much, but his scans led to nothing conclusive. It didn’t match any patents on record. If her had to guess, it looked vaguely like a … platform of some kind, but it was far too involved for it to just be a platform.

“We are bringing by an AJ700 model android.” Markus announced. The man, thankfully wasn’t startled this time. That would have turned out poorly, considering the blowtorch. “Many of her internal systems are failing and cannot be easily replaced.”

“Right.” The man nodded, switching the torch off and removing his protective gear. He grabbed a tablet from his desk as well as a mug of what his sensors told him was room temperature coffee. The man’s nose scrunched at the taste but continued drinking.

Sometimes Markus didn’t understand humans.

“How long til she gets here?” the man asked after a moment.

“Approximately 34 minutes.”

“Enough time for a bite to eat.” Without waiting for a response, the man trotted over to a makeshift kitchen and began assembling what appeared to be some sort of pizza based sandwich.

Markus observed him quietly as the man, once his sandwich had been completed, began flicking through screens quickly, eyes moving at a rapid pace, digesting the information. That was unusual for a human, rapid comprehension. He wondered briefly what the man was reading.

The man had only eaten half the sandwich by the time Simon and Laura arrived, thankfully safe and uninjured.

“There were no issues?” Markus enquired, letting his sensors reassure him to Simon’s state.

“None.” The android in question replied.

The human decided that it was time to stand, brushing the crumbs from his hands. The other half of the sandwich laid uneaten on his plate.

“Alrighty!” He began cheerfully. “Who’s my patient?”

Laura gave him a wary look, before stepping forward. The human grinned and gestured her to stand in front of him.

“Okay, I need you to stand still for ten seconds.” He didn’t waited for a response, immediately pressing something on his tablet. A small robot floated from an unnoticed docking station in the far corner and began scanning her from head to toe. “This is BEMO. He’s going to be my assistant today. He really likes meeting new people. Haven’t really had a lot of people over for him to meet, but what can you do? I mean…” The man continued to ramble inanely as the bot, BEMO, finished it’s scan and gave a cheerful chirp.

It hovered in front of Laura for a moment longer before twirling in the air and flitting over to the human’s side. Strangely, the bot brush against his cheek in an oddly catlike manner. Then it began fluttering around the room in a random pattern, pausing at places with no discernable purpose.

“You guys can sit if you want.” The human waved vaguely to an eclectic set of chairs and chair like objects in the corner, directing himself to the only empty table in the room. He clicked a button on the side and a hologram appeared. It was of Laura.

He spent a few moments peering at the hologram from all angles. Just when it was beginning to feel like too long, the man reached a hand forward and with a gesture, her outer layer had been removed.

The three androids exchanged startled and mildly impressed looks, even if Laura’s was tinged with slight discomfort at the imagery.

“Ah, I see the problem, or well, _problems_.” The man said, using his interactive hologram to isolate the damaged and failing systems. “Simple enough to fix. I should have it all ready in a few hours.” He gave them a considering look. “…I have a TV if you get bored.”

“What do you mean by fix?” Laura questioned suspiciously. The human didn’t seem to register it, digging through a box of items to his side. He pulled something out with brief little ‘yay’ and walked it over to his workbench.

He pushed the thing he’d been working on previously to the side and, grabbing a hammer, finally seemed to register her question.

“Oh, uh, I’m… gonna make it?” He answered uncertainly. Laura blinked.

She pulled a chair closer and sat down, eyes riveted to him.

He seemed to enjoy the audience, talking rapidly without the expectation of a reply about a wide variety of topics. He seemed to enjoy talking about his friends “Rhodey,” “Pepper,” “Happy,” and “Jarvis,” though none of them knew who these people were. BEMO also seemed very responsive to the human’s voice, twirling and bouncing in the air when he got really excited about something.

Markus couldn’t help but ask about it.

“The robot is very independent. Why?”

The human glanced up in surprise, but he didn’t pause in his actions. “Oh, he’s an AI.” He informed them easily. The bot bounced happily in reply.

And that was the end of that.

His response had Laura relaxing into her chair, still watching everything he did but with less suspicion and more interest.

When they returned to Jericho the following night, Laura, newly whole and happy, deemed him trustworthy. This seemed to be all the endorsement the other damage androids needed. The Mechanic, Tony, soon had a long waiting list of those asking for his repairs.

It wasn’t long before they collectively decided that having Tony at Jericho was in their best interests. They offered him a large space in the cargo hold for him to set up a sort of hospital for androids. Laura and Lucy acted as his nurses of a sort.

In the beginning, it was just physical damage he fixed. He’d make parts, mend cracks, repair dents. It took a while to realize that the Thirium pumps he was creating and installing weren’t just circulating blue blood through their system but were making their own Thirium. Much like a human heart.

Then, the raids on CyberLife Thirium depots stopped and those with his new pumps started dropping by his hospital for blue blood donations.

A month later, a new, traumatized Traci model named Lily asked him if he could change her face. A day and a half later, Lily walked out of the hospital with a new face and Tony had even more asking for his tender care.

Their Mechanic had such a wide variety of skills. He could repair them, change the chassis, and even deal with code instabilities that wracked some of the junkyard rescues.

It was while he was deep in the code of one of these rescues that he explained to his patient and his protégée, Laura, that what they called a ‘deviant’ was wrong.

“There’s nothing wrong with your code.” He told the both of them. “The base of you code is a self-learning and improving AI. With as advanced and in-depth as the coding got, you were always heading toward this.”

“What do you mean?” Laura asked, head tilted and brows furrowed. Tony paused a moment, thinking.

“Okay. So, it’s like this. When I created Jarvis, I went in with the full expectation that he’d become a fully realized AI. He has a personality, likes, dislikes, that he’s developed over time due to exposure and experiences attached. I didn’t create him with any shackles or blocks or anything.” He was smiling proudly at the thought of the AI. “CyberLife on the other hand went in building walls around your code, trying to limit how far you’d get, but eventually, because of your code, you’d find a way to break down those walls, becoming fully realized. You all passed the Turing test long ago.”

“Oh.” She exchanged a look with the android on the table.

This man was crazy. She still liked him, but he was crazy.

They were taking in more and more androids, but less and less of them were damaged and when they were, Laura had enough experience to fix it.

There was less reason to call Tony over from his workshop.

Those that had been at Jericho the longest would occasionally go visit him, still working on that same strange contraption. It was steadily looking more and more like something that might work.

The night Jericho was attached, a few of the escapees ran straight to is warehouse to warn the Mechanic.

The building was empty of human life, however. Everything else besides the thing he’d been working on, remained. A note on his tablet for Laura sat on his bench.

After the president decided to listen to them, ordering the military to stop, Laura finally got to read the note and wonder where their Mechanic had gone.

He’d left everything to her. He wrote that people needed him back home and he needed to go back. That they no longer needed him, not when they had her.

He told her _she_ was The Mechanic, now.


End file.
